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The Ringer-Verse

Summer Gaming Showcase Reactions! | Button Mash

08 Jun 2026

Transcription

Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

Chapter 1: What major gaming announcements were made during the Summer Gaming Showcase?

13.379 - 32.772 Ben Lindbergh

Hello and welcome into The Ringerverse, your Nexus feed for all things fandom. I am Ben Lindberg, a senior editor for The Ringer and the Jeff Keighley equivalent of Button Mesh without the shiny red jacket. When Button Mesh moves to video, I've got to upgrade my wardrobe. We're doing a rare Sunday recording.

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32.752 - 49.444 Ben Lindbergh

to bring you the Button Mash Summer Gaming Showcase Showcase, where we will react to all the news. Well, most of the news. All the news might take us all day. From Sony's State of Play, Summer Game Fest, the Xbox Games Showcase, and beyond.

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49.424 - 60.544 Ben Lindbergh

Joining me for this endeavor, doing double duty as guest and producer, and giving himself the Survivor-style hero edit, it's Steve, Summer Steve Fest, Allman.

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60.924 - 73.741 Steve Ahlman

Howdy, Steve. Very good. You don't know this by now, but in post, I've given myself heavenly, god-ray, angelic sounds every time I speak. I don't doubt it. I don't listen back to the completed button meshes usually.

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73.861 - 75.566 Ben Lindbergh

So I have no idea what you get up to.

Chapter 2: How are industry trends shifting regarding live-service games?

76.809 - 80.359 Steve Ahlman

Wow, okay. You could have just had dead air for years and you not know about it. I know.

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80.744 - 89.297 Ben Lindbergh

Hopefully you and Devin are doing a great job. I'm sure you are. Steve, you attended some of this week's festivities and you bring us in-person impressions.

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89.558 - 95.527 Steve Ahlman

Yes, I do. I'm now a senior Summer Games Fest correspondent this week as well.

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95.968 - 118.502 Ben Lindbergh

Yes, some shoe leather reporting, service journalism from Steve. So we will get to what you saw and what you thought of it. Also with us is Ringer Deputy Art Director Matt James, who brings us in-person impressions of Sweden. because that's where he was during Sony's state of play. Matt, did you go cold turkey for a few days gaming-wise, or did you lug a lot of gaming hardware to Europe?

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119.684 - 131.221 Matt James

I had the Switch 2 on the flight, but otherwise I was a very good employee and just participated in all the team building. I'm all caught up.

Chapter 3: What insights did the guests share about their experiences at the showcases?

131.322 - 136.89 Matt James

I've played some demos, and I'm ready to go.

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137.107 - 144.602 Ben Lindbergh

I'm impressed. I thought for sure you would have had a Steam Deck or one of your advanced exotic gaming handhelds, but just one?

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144.863 - 151.897 Matt James

Actually, I did bring my Thor as well, but I didn't. Okay, see? I didn't use that. I knew there was more.

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152.699 - 154.141 Ben Lindbergh

Oh, you didn't get to it. Yeah, well.

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154.182 - 156.887 Matt James

Two devices minimum on travel, you know me. Yeah.

156.867 - 164.215 Ben Lindbergh

Nick's games to pay attention to. I do, and I still do, yeah. Go New York, go New York, go. I hope you brought your power adapters, at least.

Chapter 4: What are the release dates for upcoming games discussed?

164.235 - 184.596 Ben Lindbergh

Well, my friends, no E3, no problem. Enough news for you this week? I mean, we knew we were in for quite a slew of announcements and trailers and release dates, but I think we may have gotten more than we bargained for. This was a real just fire hose of gaming news.

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184.576 - 189.286 Matt James

Indeed, and there's allegedly a Nintendo Direct on the horizon as well.

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189.426 - 210.083 Ben Lindbergh

Yes, right. Yeah, you know Nintendo's going to get in on everything, but on their own time. You know, Nintendo doesn't play by anyone else's rules, but could be as soon as this week, so more to come. But we will cover everything that we have heard today. And we wanted to convene on the weekend so that we could get you a more timely reaction here.

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210.143 - 222.798 Ben Lindbergh

So I have a few high-level takeaways from what we saw this week. Just some themes, some connections that stood out to me. So I will throw those out to you. Get your thoughts. You can add any that you might have.

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Chapter 5: How does the hype for GTA VI affect other game releases?

222.838 - 252.21 Ben Lindbergh

And then we can just talk about the big-name games. And Steve can tell us about what he got his hands on. I think the big takeaway here, and it's pretty obvious, but nonetheless striking, is that if you had plans for September, cancel them. Right. Because you got games to play, not even just September, I guess late August to mid to late October. That's it.

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252.33 - 278.922 Ben Lindbergh

This year, the holiday season ends around October 23rd. It's like... In the sequel to 2001, A Space Odyssey, 2010, Hal sends a message to humanity and he says, all these worlds are yours except Europa. Attempt no landing there, which we are attempting a Europa landing soon, so we should be careful. But it's as if... Rockstar Games said, all these months are yours, except November.

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279.262 - 289.122 Ben Lindbergh

Attempt no releases there. And every other publisher said, okay, we won't. And now what we have is a massive pileup before GTA 6.

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Chapter 6: What are the implications of console exclusivity in the gaming industry?

289.763 - 314.803 Ben Lindbergh

And you have to wonder whether this will backfire. But let me just do a dramatic reading first. of the dates that we know. I'm just, I'm looking at, this is GamesRadar, which seems to be pretty updated here. And I guess I'll just start end of August, Star Wars Zero Company. We got a release date, August 27th. Plague Tale Legacy Resonance, also August 27th. So that's really when it begins.

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314.783 - 339.332 Ben Lindbergh

Then you've got Elden Ring coming to Switch 2, finally. You have the already announced Blood of Dawnwalker coming to us from the Witcher 3 folks, the zombie game, which looks pretty exciting. That's September 3rd. Marvel's Wolverine, we knew September 15th. We got to see more of it here. There's a Warhammer 40K Dawn of War 4 game coming out September 17th.

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339.873 - 343.718 Ben Lindbergh

Dune Awakening now is coming to PS5 on September 22nd.

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Chapter 7: What gameplay features were highlighted for Marvel's Wolverine?

344.419 - 365.263 Ben Lindbergh

Silent Hill Townfall, we found out, is coming out September 24th. You know what else is coming out September 24th? Control Resonant. Every other game ever. Every other game. The Sony State of Play was just a series of announcements for the last week of September. It was like, did you guys coordinate this? Do you realize that there is only so much time in the day?

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365.284 - 376.096 Ben Lindbergh

I guess they arranged it so that Silent Hill and Control come out September 24th. So we have a whole day to get those done. Matt can do that. Matt will finish them both somehow.

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376.276 - 377.257 Matt James

I don't know how, but he will.

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377.698 - 382.283 Ben Lindbergh

Yeah. And he'll be ready for Onimusha Way of the Sword on September 25th.

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Chapter 8: What are the expectations for the Final Fantasy VII Revelation remake?

382.403 - 410.178 Ben Lindbergh

So we have a whole day to prepare for that. You also played that game, Steve. Then coming in early October, we have Rayman Legends Retold on October 1st. There's a Dynasty Warriors 3 remaster also coming that day. One of my hotly anticipated games, Ace Combat 8, Wings of Thieve, we have learned. Whatever Thieve is, I'm in October 2nd. Gears of War E-Day, October 6th.

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410.799 - 437.198 Ben Lindbergh

Star Wars Galactic Racer, October 6th. Another game that Steve played. Matt's most anticipated game of all time, Castlevania Belmont's Curse, October 15th. And then, of course, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 4 comes out on October 23rd. Phantom Blade Zero is the laggard, I guess. It got delayed to October 29th. And that's it. Beyond that point, there shall be no games released this year.

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437.579 - 463.439 Ben Lindbergh

Because if I go to the November 2026 calendar... We've got GTA 6 on November 19th. Sorry, I'm not announcing a GTA delay. November 19th. And the only other game on the calendar is Crimelight on November 4th. Very brave, very bold. I know that there are a couple maybe remasters coming, but no originals. Everyone steering clear. So what do you guys think? Is this smart?

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464.401 - 479.284 Ben Lindbergh

Is this... Are we giving too much deference to GTA 6 and now everyone's going to get themselves into an even bigger problem because suddenly they'll be competing with each other instead of GTA 6 and maybe that'll be just as bad?

481.187 - 502.166 Steve Ahlman

I personally think that it's smart... To be determined, I think it's kind of the only thing that you can do, actually. Because GTA 6, while a known quantity, is pretty much an unknown quantity as far as the massive crater of economic gap that will be left in the gaming industry after November and its release.

502.266 - 529.547 Steve Ahlman

Because any game that comes close to coming out after that is basically being sent out to die. And anything that gets... just ever so farther away from it before it comes out has a chance to make an impact on you. So anything that we think that we can get out in September or very, very, very early October, then it has a chance. But I think that this is probably the right move. Is it smart? No.

529.788 - 535.798 Steve Ahlman

Are we going to have to do like six podcasts in two weeks? Sure. But hey, that's what we got.

535.964 - 556.805 Ben Lindbergh

Yeah, it's like some sort of tragedy of the common situation, though, because it makes sense for each publisher individually to move. But then when everyone has exactly the same idea and we have this onslaught, then there are going to be some games that are left high and dry in late September, too, because only Matt James can play every single game that comes out somehow.

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